25
‘And when will Mistress Hestillion be gracing us with her presence, exactly?’
Aldasair forced a smile on his face and transferred his attention to the old human woman with the melted face. Hestillion had told him to be polite at all times, particularly with more and more representatives from all over Sarn streaming into Ebora. Polite, but firm. It was inevitable, she had said, that the humans would see the terrible state of their people and home, but it wouldn’t do to give the impression that they were desperate. They were still Ebora, they were still apart from the human rabble. It was important the human visitors did not lose sight of that fact.
However, Hestillion was increasingly absent from these uncomfortable conversations. She had been caught up by something he did not understand, and her face was lit from within with something he did not recognise, while he felt like he was being pulled out to sea by an invisible tide.
‘She will be with us shortly, I’m sure,’ he said, looking at his boots. ‘As you can imagine, there is an awful lot for Hest – I mean, Lady Hestillion – to deal with at the moment.’ He gestured around at the central plaza. For the first time in as long as he could remember, it was teeming with people: delegations from across Sarn, from Mushenska and Jarlsbad, Reidn and Finneral. A natural meeting place had grown here, sprouting from caravans and tents, while the officials from each gathering were given quarters inside the palace. Being one of the few Eborans left who wasn’t bedridden, Aldasair had ended up with the task of finding them all places, of listening to their needs and making adjustments accordingly. At first he had been terrified. For the last few decades there had been only silence to deal with, the empty corridors of the palace, and the sense that everything was lost. He had gone weeks, months even, without having to talk to anyone, until the only person he saw with any regularity was Hestillion herself, and even then she was always too annoyed to talk to him for more than a few moments. Aldasair had been left to himself, and the tarla cards, and his days had been filled with the soft rasp of paper against paper, and a gentle cascade of images, weaving a web of inescapable doom. The cards had grown so familiar that even the frightening ones looked like old friends to him: The Broken Tower, with the tiny frightened figures falling from its windows; The Endless Death, featuring an old man bricked up inside his own tomb, still alive, his fingertips bloody stumps. The cards carried on their own infinite conversation, and Aldasair listened in, content that any role he had to play in the world had long since passed him by.
Only that wasn’t the case any more. Almost, he could remember how it had been when he was very young, when he had had a sense of a future for himself. He had intended, he remembered now, to be an art merchant. He had loved painting, and paintings, very much. He was going to go out into the world and sell them, but that had been before everyone he knew had retreated to their rooms to cough out their lungs, and Aldasair had found himself suddenly alone. Answering the irate questions of Mother Fast and the other diplomats was not what he had envisioned for himself, and it was frightening, but it was also something new. He had thought all new things forever lost to Ebora.
Mother Fast sniffed. ‘It’s all very well, boy, us being here and bringing our medicines and our knowledge, but if we are not permitted to see this god of yours, how are we supposed to help?’
And that puzzled him most of all. Despite all of these people coming to lend their aid, Hestillion had suddenly become incredibly protective of the Hall of Roots. No one was to see their god, she had told him. Not until she said so. The time, she said, was not right. Tell them to help the sick ones, she had told him, and so he did; healers now went to the Eborans suffering from the crimson flux, and sometimes they were even allowed to assist. And all the while, that strange light burned behind Hestillion’s eyes.
Mother Fast was still glaring at him with her one good eye. He forgot, sometimes, that long gaps in conversations were considered rude. Aldasair opened his mouth to reply, when an imposing figure strode towards them from across the lawn. The man was a full head taller than Aldasair, which meant he towered over Mother Fast like a mountain. The hair on top of his head was yellow and wild, and he had a neat golden beard, braided here and there with tiny stone beads. He wore scuffed travelling leathers, festooned with more of the carved stone beads hanging from horsehair loops, and his bare arms were traced with ink. He had come in with the contingent from Finneral – Aldasair remembered, because even amongst that well-armed folk, this man’s pair of war-axes had been formidable. He still wore them, slung at his belt, as easily as if they were made of leaves.
‘You are in charge here, are you?’ He spoke the plains language with a touch of an accent and looked Aldasair up and down with such an expression of frank concern on his face that Aldasair found himself quite unnerved.
For want of a better idea, Aldasair nodded.
‘Stone knock me down. You’re older than you look, I imagine?’
Aldasair blinked. The man looked no older than him, which meant that he was very young indeed, in Eboran terms.
‘How old do I need to be?’
The man grinned, green eyes flashing. Aldasair had never seen a human with green eyes. ‘Now, there’s a bloody question. My name is Bern Finnkeeper. You are?’
Distantly, Aldasair was aware of Mother Fast’s eye following them, her thin mouth twisted into a near invisible slash.
‘I am Aldasair.’
‘Good to meet you.’ To his shock, Bern Finnkeeper took hold of his arm and gripped it fiercely. The strength in his long-fingered hands was surprising. ‘There’s no need for your people to die, Aldasair.’ Bern Finnkeeper met his gaze steadily. ‘No need for it. Now, what needs doing?’ Then, before Aldasair could answer, the tall man had dropped his arm and was gesturing beyond the plaza. ‘You’ve a lot of dead wood to the east, looks like it’s been building up for decades, so you’ve got a deep layer of mulch under it. Once we’ve got that cleared, you’ll have more space for these people and their nonsense.’ He turned back, grinning happily. ‘I’ll start on that, shall I? I don’t want to step on your stones, Aldasair, but I’ve a strong back and I’ll be honest, days in a horse’s saddle don’t agree with me. I like to use my hands, if you understand me?’
‘Uh . . .’
‘I shall start there, then, but if you need any other heavy lifting done, you grab me. Go to my people, they’re the ones trying to build a giant fire by your rockery – sorry about that – and ask for Bern. Actually, ask for Bern the Younger or you’ll get a lot of funny looks. My father is a big man to my people.’
Aldasair swallowed and realised he’d been staring. He was trying to imagine a human man even bigger than this one, with his golden beard and green eyes.
‘Thank you. I – anything you can do is much appreciated,’ Aldasair took a deep breath. It was still dizzying to talk this much at once.
Mother Fast looked less impressed. ‘We’re not here to tidy your gardens, Eboran. We must heal your god. What good will a tidy garden do us when the worm people darken our skies again?’
‘Our vision-singers had the same dream, Mother Fast,’ said Bern the Younger. Aldasair did not ask how they already knew each other – Bern seemed to be the sort of person who became well known in a very short amount of time. ‘And believe me, they’ve been shitting stones over it. But I am no healer!’ He grinned again. ‘There are more coming every day, and this city needs to be ready. I can help with that, at least. The healing of a god, well, I will leave that to your good self.’
Aldasair couldn’t be sure, but he thought the look Bern shot Mother Fast was a challenging one, and certainly she pulled a face like she was chewing on something bitter. All at once keeping up with how the humans communicated with each other was too much to bear; he lifted a hand to rub at his forehead and saw that his fingers were trembling. He hoped that Bern hadn’t noticed.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, straining to keep his voice steady. ‘There are things I must see to in the palace.’
He turned away from them, his head down so that he might avoid being overwhelmed by their endless questions – but not quite fast enough to miss the concern in Bern the Younger’s eyes. Keeping his back straight and walking slowly, Aldasair strode back across the plaza, promising himself a room full of silence, with just the tarla cards to read.
Hestillion was in the netherdark. The light was all around her, continually moving away and then back into her range, and she half pictured it as a startled bird, one not quite brave enough to settle on a permanent perch. She chased it, constantly trying to stay within its warmth and light; when she was there she could almost feel how Ebora had been. How it could be again.
‘Talk to me, Ygseril,’ she said, trying not to sound desperate or demanding. ‘I know you are there. You do not have to hide from me.’
Silence. Hestillion was aware of the weight of the dream-roots around her, and very distantly, her physical body asleep next to the trunk of Ygseril. She had locked the doors from the inside, so that she could have this time alone. Aldasair hadn’t understood why she wanted to be alone, but then it had been many decades since Aldasair had understood anything at all. For days now she had spent every spare moment here, chasing the light. The plan could change, and the humans could wait; Hestillion had important work to do.
‘Ygseril. Please.’
The light grew, and Hestillion had the strangest sensation of something pushing, a membrane breaking, and then a cold wave that swept from her feet up to the top of her head.
You will not leave.
For a moment, Hestillion was lost. The shock was too great – she was a shed leaf, buffeted away from father-branch – and she thought she would be swallowed by it. Instead, she took hold of everything that she thought of as herself, and held it fast. The voice. The voice was real. It was soft and genderless, made more of thought than sound, existing as it did in the netherdark.
‘No, Ygseril, I will not leave.’ She swallowed down the tears. ‘I will never leave you, not me. I knew, I knew you were not truly gone.’
What do you want?
Too many things to say. Hestillion was conscious of how delicate this connection was. Despite their physical proximity she was stretched to the very limit of her dream-walking, as deep as anyone could go without slipping into a permanent sleep, and the presence she felt was as soft as a shadow across skin. The smallest thing could break this link.
‘To speak with you. To know how I can help.’
Help?
‘Of course, Ygseril. Anything. Ebora –’ Hestillion swallowed, aware this could be too much – ‘Ebora needs you.’
Silence, and a shift in the tone of the light.
‘Ygseril?’
You would give your help freely?
‘Lord, in our ignorance we thought you had died. I would do anything to bring you back. Anything you require.’
Silence again. It was as if the great tree needed time to coalesce its thoughts after so many centuries of silence.
Dead. Was it her imagination, or did the god sound amused? Not dead. Waiting.
‘Waiting for what?’ asked Hestillion eagerly. Something was holding Ygseril back, she could tell that much. ‘If I can give you what you need, I will.’
You are special. The shape of your mind. How it flits. Such a clever little shape.
Hestillion folded herself over, keeping the flare of joy inside lest it startle or embarrass Ygseril.
‘I seek only to renew your glory for all of Ebora.’
A special child, continued the voice. It almost sounded dreamy now, distant. So determined, so stubborn. You are willing to use everything you have, aren’t you? Regardless of the cost, you would see your Ebora revived.
Edging closer to the light-voice, Hestillion nodded. ‘It is all I have dreamed of, great tree-god, all my long life.’
And yet my roots are still rigid with cold and death. For all your efforts, I am still a corpse.
Hestillion’s stomach fluttered.
‘Tell me what I can do.’ She tried to sound confident, but a memory of how small she was here, and how dark it was, flickered at the edges of her mind. ‘How can I bring you to life, great one?’ More silence, so she tried a different approach. ‘Perhaps, if you told me what happened at the end of the Eighth Rain – if you told me what did this to you, I could help.’
No. The voice was no longer a nervous bird; it was an iron door, closed tight. Small flitting mind, let me sleep. Make my roots thirst and stretch again, if you can, but let me sleep.
Hestillion let the silence grow. She did not want to go back to the palace, with all its problems of diplomacy and who was eating what where. Not yet.
‘I have summoned the world to our gates to save you, Ygseril,’ she said eventually. ‘They have brought healers and mystics, men and women of alchemy. They are eager to help, all of them. Perhaps they can make your roots thirst again.’
Concentrating, aware that she was performing for her god, she dream-crafted the scene in the central plaza as it had been earlier that morning: the teeming caravans and tents, the long tables laden with food, the humans walking and talking and eating. She brought every inch of her dream-walker skill to the vision, crafting the watery sun in the pale sky, the mud from hundreds of boots that had been dragged across the shining stones.
‘Ebora,’ she said, ‘has not been so lively in centuries.’
How did you make them come?
‘I spun a lie for them, Ygseril, and I sent it out into the netherdark. A special dream, for especially receptive minds. I told them that the Jure’lia, the old enemy, were coming back, and without Ebora they would all perish. Without you and the war-beasts born amongst your branches, Sarn will fall to the worm people in a single turn of the true moon.’
The voice did not reply immediately. Instead, the soft light increased in brightness, flickering oddly. Hestillion recoiled, holding fast to the netherdark to stop herself from jolting awake. When the voice did speak again, it sounded different.
You extraordinary creature, it said. Such a thing to think, such a confection to craft. The light faded, and then came back. It seemed to hang over Hestillion like a shroud, and for the first time she felt like she was being truly observed. Tell me again, who you are.
‘I am your servant, the Lady Hestillion, of the Eskt family, born in the year of the green bird.’
Yes, but who are you? What holds you at your core, Lady Hestillion? All the tiny disparate pieces, what threads them together? What single thing?
Hestillion briefly found herself lost for an answer. Ygseril sounded strange – alert somehow, engaged in a way she hadn’t felt before – but she hadn’t the faintest idea what the god was getting at. She went for the obvious answer.
‘You, my lord.’ She collapsed the vision of the plaza, and instead summoned a vision of Ygseril himself, silver branches spreading over the palace roof. ‘Your roots are what hold me together at my core.’
Only silence answered her.
‘Ygseril? Are you there?’
As if her words were the catalyst, the god-light began to fade, moving so fast she could not follow it, and then she was alone in the netherdark, the cold press of dead roots all around her.
‘But you are not dead,’ she told herself. ‘Not dead, after all.’
Slowly, she came back to herself. Her legs were numb from sitting curled on the hard roots, and there was a deep chill in her bones, but she hardly felt it. Ygseril was not dead, simply hiding. He might be inert, but he was reachable. Turning to face the door, she thought first of going to Aldasair, but would he even understand what she had discovered? And then she thought of the humans, swarming outside their gates, eager to help but also eager to help themselves. They brought trade, and life, and attention; these were valuable things. But perhaps . . . perhaps the salvation of Ygseril was her destiny after all. Who else had stayed? Who else had kept the small seed of hope?
‘Only I,’ she murmured through cold lips. ‘And this shall be my own secret, a little longer. Just until I bring him back.’